


Motherhood

by Sath



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene, Vore, as many spiders as you would expect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-01
Updated: 2017-04-01
Packaged: 2018-10-13 16:05:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10517142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sath/pseuds/Sath
Summary: After Sam's brutal attack, Shelob heals herself.





	

Sweetness. Mother smelled of sweetness, Shelob remembered, and she was sweet soothing darkness. How she missed Mother now! Blind, wounded, bleeding, Shelob crawled through the tunnels she had made over forgettable ages. Her belly was heavy, not with the familiar weight of spiderlings but the new burden of pain.

_Gilthoniel A Elbereth!_

That foul thing, that tender, delicious, un-Orc flesh had spoken those burning words. They were like drums, beating her onward. Mother—Ungoliant, the soft sharp Elves had named her—would have never been so cowed. Shelob was so very hungry now, as ichor dripped from her violated eyes. It caught on the hairs of her mouth and she swallowed it, her own taste reminding her of the last time she had eaten one of her sons.

Her dear children. She smelled one now; a daughter, older than Shelob usually allowed. Had she spared the daughter intentionally? Or had she been fortunate, listening to the song of the web and fleeing her mother’s footstep? Time and memory had lost meaning since Shelob came to the mountains, growing old as Mother.

Daughter, Shelob plucked into the web, Mother comes for you. Mother remembers you.

Not yet, her daughter’s feet sang.

Shelob had played this game with Mother. The chase through shadow and web, Mother’s feet tapping out love as they warned of the terrible hunger in her belly. I will eat you, my dearest child, if I catch you. Shelob had been lean back then, and hid in tunnels too narrow for Mother to enter. But Mother would try, her great claws scraping at the rock for hours, hours, as Shelob waited for Mother to smell easier meat. To live was to devour, or be devoured.

Oh, Shelob ached with loneliness now. She crawled faster as she sung her daughter slower. Shelob made so many promises, of endless meat and love and never the fang. Such was a mother’s way, to wish her daughter flesh without price. Mothers wanted only the best for their children.

Venom beaded beneath her fangs as her daughter’s smell grew stronger.

When Shelob had been but a spiderling, Mother would sometimes take her into her arms. She did this only after she had feasted. To be held by Mother was the joy of joys, more filling than any flesh. Mother would stroke Shelob’s hair, her claws scratching out a gentle song.

All gone now. Ungoliant’s song had ended far from Shelob. And when Shelob passed, for nothing was deathless, not even the liars over the sea, her children would remember her, and remember the few moments when she had conquered her hunger, and held them.

Shelob was starving. At last she beheld her daughter; she was beautiful, and so Shelob must have spared her.

Dearest child, Shelob tapped, let me hold you. You are so, so lovely, and I am proud. I am too weak to hurt you. Come here; you may taste the ichor flowing from my belly.

Her daughter—tender, most perfect thing!—scuttled forward. Timidly, she reached out with her front feet, brushing against Shelob’s side. As she pulled her daughter close, Shelob let her press her mouth to the wound, and drink.

Shelob dreamed of her daughter growing fat and terrible, spinning her own darkness and song. Her daughter would raise brood after brood and send spiderlings to the ends of the world, to wreath the cruel horizon with the blackest, unending night.  

But not yet. Not this one. Shelob struck, piercing her daughter’s tender head with her fangs. Her daughter flailed and scratched, her smell screaming.

Shh, shh, Shelob sang. You are loved.

**Author's Note:**

> This one goes out to you, Mom.


End file.
